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Doctrinal vs. Pastoral

Doctrinal vs. Pastoral

Dec 24, 2024 | 784 words | Religious Politics 

If you style yourself a secularist who shuns organized religion, you may not have a rooting interest in the great debate that rages within sectarian circles: whether it is better to be doctrinally pure, or pastorally sensitive.  From what I can gather this is an active source of tension in most every faith tradition.

It boils down to that age-old choice management types and administrators have had to make in trying to maintain order up and down the ranks – stick to the letter of the law and let the chips fall where they may, or step back occasionally to suss out what might be called the spirit of the law, in an attempt to ameliorate certain controversial situations in a somewhat less severe manner.

The wisest men and women among us, some of whom we have come to identify as saints or mystics, find a way to do both simultaneously.  Or come as close as possible to doing both, given the constraints of our intrinsically flawed human nature.

(King Solomon in the Old Testament being one historical example of wisdom-in-action that springs to mind.)

In the Catholic tradition, which is the one I have signed onto, we have come to set up this doctrinal/pastoral dichotomy up as a stark contrast between “teaching the faith” and “preaching the Gospel,” and we indulge in a parlor game of grading our Popes on this adversarial curve.  

But how can you teach the faith if you are not also preaching the Gospel?  And how can you preach the Gospel without teaching the faith?

The late Pope Benedict is viewed as an exemplary teacher of the faith by those who admire what they take to be his doctrinal integrity, while being found somewhat lacking in pastoral skills by others who say they appreciate a more nuanced approach.

Pope Francis, who at first glance gives the impression of specializing in being pastoral, drives those who held Benedict in high esteem up a wall.  Commentators I respect have gone on record as saying “Francis will be judged by history as having failed to teach the faith,” an assessment I find to be utterly preposterous.

There are many ways to be authentically Catholic, just as I imagine there are probably many ways to practice any faith tradition.  As a Christian, I follow a God-made-man of many moods and colors, who chased the money lenders from the Temple in what comes across as a fit of pique, but who also unfurled the gentle Beatitudes to an attentive crowd gathered on a grassy hillside.

His admirers see Benedict as ardently chasing the money-lenders, while fans of Francis see him as promulgating the Beatitudes.  Is one Pope more-or-less Catholic than the other? Many Catholics today seem to think so.

I loved Benedict, thought he was plenty pastoral in what he wrote, and felt he got a bad rap as a hard-ass and a doctrinal Nazi.

I love Francis, think he is doctrinally sound in what he writes, and feel he has been written off as a “loose cannon” by different people for different reasons.  Some don’t appreciate his non-stop reference to Third World realities, and see in those references an unapologetic critique of our comfortable First World sensibilities.

Others consider themselves strict originalists who believe the Ten Commandments and all other Church teaching need only be applied in a consistent manner, with no interpretation required.  This belies the fact this teaching has been undergoing unrestrained development for over two thousand years.

Some see the great threat of the present moment as one of acquiescence, with Francis guilty of the unforgivable sin of fudging unalterable doctrine to suit the times.  Such a concept is anathema to “trad” Catholics (and to me, too, by the way), and they deplore a wishy-washy implementation of Church teaching.

But I see the present moment as part of a larger, much richer and more diverse tapestry.  For me the big picture comes into focus when we acknowledge our human nature as intrinsically flawed, which means our understanding of what Christ was trying to tell us in the first place, two thousand years ago, is always going to require continual refinement.

I wish we could all get past what strikes me as a false dichotomy of either fearfully clinging to tradition or bravely embracing progress.  We don’t automatically know better than our religious ancestors and therefore should not be too be quick to change course, just because we are here now and boast the best of intentions.  

But let’s also realize those ancestors didn’t necessarily get everything right, either, even though they may have been trying their darndest to do so, and no doubt believed the angels were on their side.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.

www.robertjcavanaughjr.com

bobcavjr@gmail.com

Use the contact form below to email me.

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Understanding the Infidels

Understanding the Infidels

Nov 14, 2024  |  804 words  |  Politics, Religion 

When no one from my side of the church took communion at our nuptial mass a few weeks ago it was a stark reminder that Mother Church has lost her hold on the hearts and minds of a generation. Or maybe two.

The priest sex abuse scandal is often cited as a root cause, but that just constitutes the last nail in the coffin, if you ask me.  I see the rejection of religion as an unintended consequence of the upward mobility so many of us have enjoyed over the last half century or so.  

Material prosperity has emboldened us to ‘stand on our own two feet’ intellectually speaking, and distance ourselves from the belief system that sustained our parents and grandparents.  As we have found and fallen in love with the good life we have ceased to dream of eternity, as someone once wrote.

Visiting Rome for the first time this week has given me a new perspective on how this wholesale defection began, about 500 years ago.  I mean, I always knew there was lots of medieval plotting and palace intrigue, lots of jockeying for power and political corruption in the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.  

But reading about it and coming face-to-face with the physical manifestations in the form of so many ornate cathedrals and impressive works of art paid for by powerful banking families who were “Catholic-in-name-only,” and commissioned by Popes with mistresses and illegitimate children, with the sordid details of all the scheming and power-grabs spelled out by tour guides steeped in this history, is a different thing entirely.

My first reaction has been a new-found empathy for none other than Martin Luther (1483-1546), an historical  figure I had previously dismissed as a well-intentioned reformer who got carried away and threw the baby out with the bath water.  

I did some quick research from my hotel room and learned a little more about this rebel who upset the apple cart of Catholicism.  Luther was an Augustinian friar who had been dispatched to Rome in 1510 to settle a dispute involving the Augustinian order in Germany.  He not only saw the Holy City as the pinnacle of his spiritual aspirations, but was hoping the trip would shore up what had been his failing spirituality.  

While in Rome he made a point to visit every relic he could find, in the hope of availing himself of every ounce of grace that homage to such an object might offer.  But these supposedly sacred sites were at odds with the corruption surrounding them.  He saw firsthand how the Church had thoroughly monetized the grace of God.  

Confronted with so much vice and debauchery, so much blatant disregard for foundational Christian teaching, the man was possessed of enough devotional integrity to ask himself: “Holy cow, is everybody in this town on the take?”

Luther’s much anticipated 1510 trip to Rome ended in disillusionment and confusion, resulting in the 1517 publication of his Ninety-Five Theses we are all familiar with.  After only a few days here myself I now see him in a completely different light, and think of him as having given this attempt at a major overhaul his best shot.  I admire him for his effort.  

In the same way, I don’t blame my side of the church for not taking communion at our nuptial mass, and understand that doing so would have been intellectually dishonest for many of them.  I also, by the way, do not consider any of the abstainers to be ‘infidels’ in any sense of the term.  In fact, the concept of ‘infidel’ does not have any purchase in my understanding of human nature.

That this word appears in my title is meant as a gentle tweak of those who think it does have currency, who think of their preferred belief system as providing them with a lock on the truth.  (And by the way, this charge of intellectual smugness extends to all my atheist friends as well, who seem to think of their skepticism as the ultimate trump card.)

It’s good to be certain of something, but in my experience real hardcore certainty is hard to come by.  There are so many layers to the truth, so much nuance to discover in every story.  

I think it boils down to our all being on a lifelong journey to try and understand ourselves, and understand this world we have found ourselves in.  If that journey involves forsaking religion for ‘reason,’ or adhering to a religious tradition other than the one I have chosen to embrace, I am not inclined to condemn you. 

Quite the opposite.  By virtue of the way I was raised and educated, I am predisposed to see the dignity, or what some call the Imago Dei, in every person I encounter, or even read about in the news.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.

www.robertjcavanaughjr.com

bobcavjr@gmail.com

Use the contact form below to email me.

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Economic Clarity

Economic Clarity

Sept 27, 2024  |  1,336 words  |  Politics, Economics, Religion  

Over the course of his twelve-year run as pope, Francis has made it pretty clear appeasing First World sensibilities is not his top priority.  We here in the United States have not always known what to make of this, since his lack of deference can seem like disrespect at times.  

It can feel as if this Argentine pontiff is going out of his way to challenge our sense of exceptionalism, our sense of being a light to the nations and a city on a hill.  And who knows, maybe he is.  Or maybe he is just trying to broaden our perspective and bring a little Third World awareness to bear on the situation.  

I choose to think he is not disparaging us so much as he is gently prodding us to see how much more work there is left to do.  So that we should not be content to pat ourselves on the back and rest on our laurels.

In the service of this cause, Francis displays a unique ability to chide American conservatives and liberals simultaneously.  This has always struck me as part of his charm, and a sign he is doing something right.

It happened again on his return flight from a grueling 12-day trip to four tiny countries in the Asia-Pacific Rim, when reporters on the plane asked him about our upcoming presidential election.  He turned up his nose and declined to endorse either major party candidate, on the grounds that each is “against life.”  Kamala Harris because of her position on abortion, and Donald Trump because of his position on immigration.  

This bothered political partisans on both sides, since each group wants to see Catholic teaching applied in a way that endorses their preferred worldview.  Each side thinks they hold the high ground, convinced the other is the obvious apostate.

Having said that, it is undoubtedly the conservative camp who has had the longest-running feud with Pope Francis. 

They have never approved of his more “pastoral” approach to doctrine.  But what really gets their goat is the way this pope raises the issue of economic inequity every chance he gets.  Conservatives hear this as harping, and take it as a personal affront, an attack on their way of life.

This is especially true whenever Francis uses the term ‘social justice.’  That phrase puts American conservatives in a foul mood, as it smacks of the policy initiatives enacted by the Democrat left over the last hundred years, which they have steadfastly opposed as governmental overreach.

Never mind that these policies have been aimed at smoothing out the rough edges of ‘free market’ ideas advanced by conservatives.  Whether this-or-that Democrat policy has been an effective way to legislate ‘fairness’ is certainly open to debate.  My point is conservatives have always opposed these policies out of the gate, on the grounds they violate the hallowed concept of ‘limited government.’

Now, I am four-square in favor of keeping government as small as possible.  But how small is just right?  What size should a government be, to do what needs to be done?  Namely, provide for or administer to a just society, or at least a ‘more equitable’ one.  This should be an ongoing negotiation.  But the discussion should center on ‘social justice’ every bit as much as it does on ‘fiscal responsibility.’

*

That, to me, is all Pope Francis has been trying to tell us throughout his papacy.  He is talking to the Hey-I-don’t need-any-help, independent-minded contingent here in the United States, as well as the successful minority in all other ‘developed’ countries across the First World.

He was at it again on September 20, soon after he returned from that grueling trip the Asia-Pacific Rim, when he visited the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in Rome, where he addressed a gathering of The World Meeting of Popular Movements for the fourth time in his pontificate.  Here are a few excerpts…

“If there are no policies, good policies, rational and equitable policies that strengthen social justice so that everyone has land, shelter, work, a fair salary and adequate social rights, the logic of material waste and human waste will spread, leaving violence and desolation in its wake.”

“Social justice is inseparable from compassion,” Francis insisted.  “True compassion builds the unity of people.”  The opposite of compassion is “to look down on others as if they were worthless.  It is the great temptation of our time.  To look from afar, to look from above, to look with indifference, to look with contempt, to look with hatred.”

“This is how violence is conceived: the silence of indifference enables the roar of hatred.  Silence in the face of injustice gives way to social division, social division to verbal violence, verbal violence to physical violence, physical violence to the war of all against all.”

Then Francis really got down to brass tacks, commenting on one of the foundational truths of free market ideology:

“Blind competition for more money is not a creative force, but an unhealthy attitude and a path to perdition.  Such irresponsible, immoral, and irrational behavior is destroying creation and dividing peoples.”

“Dehumanized ideologies promote the ‘culture of the winner’…  Some call this meritocracy…  (but) it is paradoxical that many times great fortunes have little to do with merit:  They are the result of income or inheritances, they are the result of the exploitation of people and the plundering of nature, they are the product of financial speculation or tax evasion, they derive from corruption or organized crime.”

Francis then repeated a familiar refrain of his:

“Sadly, it is often precisely the wealthiest who oppose the realization of social justice or integral ecology out of sheer greed.”  They pressure governments “to sustain bad policies that favor them economically.”

On the bright side Francis also acknowledged:

“Some of the richest men in the world (do) recognize that the system that allowed them to amass extraordinary fortunes – allow me to say ridiculous fortunes – is immoral and must be modified” and “that there should be more taxes on billionaires.”

“If that small percentage of billionaires who monopolize most of the planet’s wealth were encouraged to share it…  how good it would be for themselves and how fair it would be for everyone,” the pope said.  “I sincerely ask the privileged of this world to be encouraged to take this step.  They’re going to be much happier.”

*

There were about thirty representatives of different popular movements from various countries in the room as Pope Francis spoke on September 20, but many more were connected by streaming worldwide, and speakers from Sri Lanka and South Africa spoke to the group via Zoom.

Like his previous three talks to the World Meeting of Popular Movements, this 45-minute speech was a stirring call to action.  It echoed and built upon themes of social justice his papal predecessors have stressed since at least 1891, when Pope Leo XIII drilled down on the economic disparities created by the first Gilded Age.

Unfortunately, this September 20 address received zero coverage in the mainstream media.  Major news outlets did not mention the event or comment on the pope’s remarks in any way.  And apparently there were  no social media influencers in attendance, to help spread the word.  What meager reporting it did receive was  relegated to the religious press, which is where I found out about it.

The ‘silent treatment’ was no doubt the result of Francis’s choice of venue:  A not-particularly-well-known international body that brings together organizations of people on the margins of society, including the poor, the unemployed, and peasants who have lost their land.

The absence of a big, splashy, headline story enabled American conservatives to dodge another chance for a close encounter with basic Christian principles regarding economic behavior, and how that behavior impacts social justice.  Not just on the world stage, but here at home as well.  

All is not lost, however.  I have a feeling this aged, increasingly infirm Argentine pontiff will keep trying to get their attention.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.

www.robertjcavanaughjr.com

bobcavjr@gmail.com

Use the contact form below to email me.

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Sowing Confusion?

Sowing Confusion?

Sept 22, 2024  |  1,041 words  |  Religion  

An aged and increasingly infirm Pope Francis may not be around much longer, but it seems he can’t leave this mortal coil soon enough to suit his conservative detractors.  The pattern of their remarks is by now well-established:  Start with a few carefully chosen words about what are no doubt the Argentine pontiff’s best of intentions, before coming down hard over his blatant disregard for this or that aspect of basic Church teaching.  These critiques are often quite erudite, and always leave the impression the commentator is far more Catholic than is the current pope.

The latest example of this ‘critical ardor’ was unfurled as the 87-year-old Francis ended his grueling 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific Rim region.  It was the longest and among the most complicated trip of his papacy – visiting Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore.  These four island nations were chosen to demonstrate an outreach to what Francis has called “the peripheries,” his term for overlooked, faraway places with small, minority or persecuted Catholic communities.

The trip went from September 2 -13, and Singapore was the last stop.  During an interreligious meeting at a Catholic Junior College there Francis said religions “are like different languages in order to arrive at God, but God is God for all.  And if God is God for all, then we are all sons and daughters of God.”  Not exactly what could be described as a wild-eyed, heretical idea.

Then Francis added a call to enter into interreligious dialogue, which was also not a surprise move considering he was speaking at a meeting centered around the concept of interreligious dialogue, conducted at the tail end of an historic trip to an area of the world with small, minority or persecuted Catholic communities.

So where did he go wrong this time?  Well, it seems the pope spoke about this dialogue as if it were an end in itself.  “Interreligious dialogue is something that creates a path.”  That may seem the most obvious of declarations to some, but his critics were quick to pose this important follow-up question: A path to where?

Precisely!  The archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, Charles A. Chaput, a highly regarded pillar of orthodoxy here in the United States, couldn’t respond fast enough to what struck him as the latest papal misstep.  

In a piece dated September 16 under the banner of First Things, that esteemed journal of conservative thought that prides itself on bringing faith into the public square, The Most Reverend Chaput came out with guns blazing:  “That all religions have equal weight is an extraordinarily flawed idea for the Successor of Peter to appear to support.”

The Archbishop then went on to wax poetic about how all the world’s religions express a human yearning, how humans have a need to worship, but that not all religions are equal in their content or consequences.  Chaput is a polished writer and is always a pleasure to read.  But I fail to see how his perceptive observations about religion in general and Catholicism in particular implicate Francis as being derelict in his duty to teach the faith clearly and preach it evangelically.

In one especially dramatic flourish, Archbishop Chaput writes: “To suggest, even loosely, that Catholics walk a more or less similar path to God as other religions drains martyrdom of its meaning.  Why give up your life for Christ when other paths get us to the same God?  Such a sacrifice would be senseless.”  Wait a minute, “drains martyrdom of its meaning”?  Here I must confess the archbishop has lost me entirely.  I thought the purpose of interreligious dialogue was to eliminate religious intolerance and religious persecution, thereby avoiding the need for anyone to die for their faith.

By now Chaput was on a roll, as he continued:  “But the witness of the martyrs is as important today as ever.  We live today in an age when the dominant religion is increasingly the worship of the self.  We need the martyrs – and each of us as a confessor of Jesus Christ – to remind an unbelieving world that the path to a genuinely rich life is to give oneself fully to another, to the other.”

This is a beautiful sentiment and is beautifully stated.  But for the life of me I cannot see where Francis has contradicted any of this.  How has he earned the ire of so many who feel that as the bishop of Rome and the institutional head of the worldwide Catholic Church he fails to teach and preach clearly.  Why are we always reading from his critics that “loose comments can only confuse,” and that “too often confusion infects and undermines the good will of this pontificate.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but why does the archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia feel the need to remind this pope “Christians hold that Jesus alone is the path to God.  To suggest, imply, or allow others to infer otherwise is a failure to love because genuine love always wills the good of the other, and the good of all people is to know and love Jesus Christ, and through him the Father who created us.”

This may be true, Archbishop.  But while it is always good to lead a thirsty horse to water, you cannot always make that horse drink.  It is one thing to believe I have received an irreproachable deposit of faith.  It is another thing altogether to go around telling sincere believers of other religious traditions they have it all wrong.  

My Catholic faith is a tremendous gift that prompts not only a deep sense of gratitude on my part, but also a profound humility.  What Archbishop Chaput describes as the requisite stance he thinks we Catholics should take strikes me as the opposite of humility.  As well as being wholly inappropriate, considering his issue seems to be with an “unbelieving world.”  Missing from his staunch analysis is the simple fact interreligious dialogue is intended to help bring the world’s believers together, despite our many dogmatic differences.

That should not be too hard to understand.  I don’t know why so many smart people continue to go out of their way to dismiss this pope as well-meaning but hopelessly misguided.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.

www.robertjcavanaughjr.com

bobcavjr@gmail.com

Use the contact form below to email me.

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The Dissemination of Distorted Information

The Dissemination of Distorted Information

October 16, 2023  |  113 words  |  Religion, Politics

Those of us who attend religious services on the weekends are routinely instructed by our clergy to show love for the “stranger,” with an emphasis on extending such love no matter how unusual or off-putting that stranger may initially appear to us.

It is a noble aim, as so many old-timey religious nostrums are.  But this one tends to go by the wayside at the first sign of trouble.

Also undermining the cause is the way many of the podcasts we listen to and YouTube videos we watch and twitter feeds we check on tend to work against developing a better understanding of the “other,” and serve instead as disseminators of distorted information.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.

www.robertjcavanaughjr.com

bobcavjr@gmail.com

Use the contact form below to email me.

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